Chapter Seventy

How long had it been since she slept? Ruth looked down at her watch and saw that it was nearly eleven at night. The time had gone by so quickly and yet so slowly. She hadn't been to bed last night, and it looked like the same was going to be true tonight. Forty hours she'd been awake now. A lot had happened in forty hours. Too much.

Yesterday started perfectly well. Normal, even. Ruth was woken by her alarm at seven in the morning, as always, and Harry kissed her cheek and gave her a little cuddle as she grumbled. Ruth was not a morning person unless absolutely necessary, but Harry always was. He made sure she was out of bed before leaving their bedroom to go to his bathroom off of his own unused bedroom; this way they could shower at the same time and not waste time waiting for each other. Once she showered, she rang for the maids to bring her coffee and help dress her for the day. Ruth obviously could dress herself, but it saved time to have people whose jobs included laying out all of her clothes and jewelry and such. Some days, though not yesterday, Ruth might even ask for some help with her hair. It just made things easier. She was queen, and she had enough to contend with; it did not take her long to let go of a lot of her earlier independence when it came to these normal things. She was not normal, so she got used to it quick enough.

By eight, Ruth was downstairs in the small dining room where Harry was usually already eating breakfast and reading the newspaper. Emilia and Charlotte and Catherine all came to have breakfast with their parents. Ruth took as long as she was allowed in the mornings to be with her family, since most days did not leave her much time to just sit and talk to her husband and children. Catherine worked with her a lot, and Harry was by her side if there were events for them to attend together, but Ruth had to carve out time in her days whenever possible in order to see her little daughters. Not so little anymore. Charlotte was now officially too big for either Ruth or Harry to pick up and carry anymore. And, even more horrifyingly, both girls had started school. Ruth had fought hard for her daughters to go to a proper school with other children, as she had done when she was the child of the king and queen's second son, and not be tutored at the palace as her father and uncle had been. Emmy was now in her second year and incredibly precocious. Charlotte was quietly brilliant in her first year, though her shyness did not seem to be going away when in the midst of other children her age and having to be in a class away from her sister.

Ruth spent nearly every moment of her unoccupied time—which was not much, unfortunately—thinking about her children. She no longer wasted her thoughts on wishing that she could be a normal mother to her children. But she tried to keep up with what they were learning in school and how they were doing and who their friends were. They were growing up fast, which is surely what every parent says, but with all the rest of her responsibilities, Ruth did not want to have all those changes pass her by. She wasn't able to know or be part of everything. Far from it, actually, but she did pride herself on knowing that Charlotte was the best reader in the first year and that Emilia was very good at her times tables and that Charlotte had started developing an interest in sport with a little friend of hers called Lucy and that Emmy's favorite color was green and her favorite animal was a frog because it was green.

Far too soon, Queen Louisa had to start her day. Jo came to collect her for her first meeting of the day. The girls went off to school, Catherine went to work in the offices wing of the palace, Harry went off to whatever meetings he had for the day as well. Harry enjoyed the increased responsibility that came with being Prince of Leister, and it was a weight off Ruth to know that he was able to take some of that responsibility from her.

Until about lunchtime, the day was perfectly normal. Then all hell broke loose.

Jo interrupted Ruth in her private study while she met with the Royal Curator about proposed changes to the libraries and art collections in the various palaces. The books needed refreshing with new material, some of the paintings needed cleaning and restoration. As Ruth had always been very involved with her libraries, she insisted on being personally briefed about things like this. Jo's interruption was therefore very unwelcome.

"I'm so sorry, Your Majesty, there is an urgent matter requiring your attention. Mr. Wells, we'll have to reschedule with you," Jo said, ushering the curator out of the room.

Ruth was disappointed to see the thin, bespectacled, prematurely balding man escorted away. But whatever was going on obviously needed to take precedence. "Jo, what's going on?" she asked as soon as Colin Wells had left.

A worried look crossed her face. "The Leader of the Legislature and Head of Foreign Intelligence for the Army are here."

That certainly caught Ruth's attention. An unscheduled appearance by Leader Towers was never a very good sign. And Ruth hadn't even seen Erin Watts since she took over Harry's job; Erin briefed Ruth with a phone call once each month and that's all that they needed, usually.

Ruth stood at her desk and steeled herself. "Show them in, please," she instructed Jo.

Both Erin and Towers had grave looks on their faces. They bowed to their queen and the three of them sat down. And that was when the first international crisis of Ruth's reign had begun.

Revolution in Mahrain. One of the largest colonies under Queen Louisa's control, responsible for a huge amount of agricultural productivity for the entire kingdom, including the other colonies, was now in utter chaos.

It wasn't entirely unexpected. Other countries with colonial holdings were experiencing uprisings and revolutions for independent rule. Ruth would have been naïve to think that her own colonies would not go the same ways. And Ruth was not naïve.
Leader Towers discussed the domestic implications of rebellious Mahrain, what would happen if the revolution was prolonged, what would happen if they allowed Mahrain to win its independence. Erin Watts discussed the foreign military consequences: instability in the region, compromise of their army outposts in Mahrain, potential war with Jelman if the fighting spread over into the neighboring nation's borders.

Their meeting took over the rest of the day. Other people came in and out. Office of Colonial Affairs, Foreign Policy Advisor with Catherine as his assistant, various military leaders, and of course Harry as well. Six phone lines were set up in Ruth's office to bring immediate information. Towers calling to his office to keep up with information from other Members of the Legislature and the press. Erin calling her office to ensure they got the most up to date information from Foreign Intelligence.

In a very terrible way, Ruth felt comfortable under these circumstances. She almost felt like she herself was back at Foreign Intelligence as Operational Liaison. Only instead of Ruth being the one to run around collecting information and talking on the phone in five different languages, she was the one on the receiving end of the information. She was the one who had to make decisions and lead everyone in the room. Ruth, and not Harry this time. That was the part that made her absolutely sick to her stomach. Luckily there weren't really decisions to make at this juncture. Mahrain was in utter chaos. They couldn't do anything until they knew what was going on.

"I've gotten word that the Colonial Office is still secure."

"Get me the Minister of Mahrain on the phone right now," Ruth ordered. The words and the tone in which she said them felt very strange in her mouth and sounded unfamiliar to her ear.

Someone handed her a phone, and Ruth was suddenly talking to a very frightened bureaucrat. "Minister Larsie, I need…" The panic coming through the phone prevented Ruth from getting a full sentence in edgewise. She tried a different tack.

Mahrain had been a colony for seventy-five years, but before that, it had been a rural and derelict district of Jelman. The people of Mahrain were a mixture of colonizers, ethnic Jelmanese, and native Mahraini. Ruth was always pleased that her father had put the current Minister of Mahrain in place because of her unique heritage. Minister Larsie's mother had been a colonizer, and her father was mixed Jelmanese and Mahraini. Minister Larsie's background gave her a near equal perspective on the major factions of Mahraini society. And that was what Ruth needed now.

Ruth decided to speak to her in her native Jelmanese. She was a bit out of practice, but thankfully she knew enough to be able to carry on this conversation. "Please keep breathing, Minister Larsie. I know this is a terrible situation. I would never want you to suffer through what is happening in Mahrain right now. But I need you to calm yourself down and lead on my behalf. You took your vow to serve the crown as its representative in the colony of Mahrain, and that is what you must do now. I need you to tell me, slowly and calmly, what is going on," she said in near-perfect Jelamanese.

And on it went. Minister Larsie kept in near constant contact with Queen Louisa. The rest of them all had their own sources of information. The news came in slowly. But it came in. The rebellion began with the farmers. Not the farm workers, but the owners of the farms who sold to the government. They had organized their workers and other resources to fight what they viewed was unfair suppression of their opportunities thanks to colonial rule. They were passionate and organized, two things that were certainly in their favor.

At two in the morning, Erin reported that her intelligence officers had witnessed systematic burning of government buildings. By six, Ruth was unable to reach Minister Larsie. One of the military advisors announced that the revolutionaries had taken control of the power and phone utilities just after noon.

And now it was nearing midnight. The room was silent for the first time in a day and a half. They were waiting for something else to come through. Anything.

The ringing of the phone was shrill and startling. It was Erin's line. She answered and said nothing as she listened for a minute. The rest of them waited on bated breath.

Erin hung up and turned to her queen. "It's over. The rebels have taken the ministry building and declared victory. The death toll is incomplete, but early numbers say more than four hundred."

Four hundred people dead. In less than two days. More than four hundred lives lost. Ruth thought she was about to be sick.

She stood up from her desk, and everyone else immediately got up. "Everyone go home and get some sleep. We'll reconvene here tomorrow at eight and strategize for next steps with Mahrain and the rest of the colonies. Thank you all for your work and dedication."

The room bowed to Ruth, something she was used to by now. She didn't speak to any of them as she walked out the door. She did not speak to anyone or stop at all until she got up to her bedroom. Harry was already in bed with the light out. Ruth stripped out of her clothes to just her slip and her knickers, leaving everything on the floor where it fell.

Queen Louisa got into bed with her husband and, for the first time, her title was not just a fact in the back of her mind. It remained in the forefront of her every thought and feeling. She did not curl up against Harry or seek out his comforting embrace. Just now, she did not want to be comforted. She wanted to remember this feeling. To know what it was to feel the weight of the crown and to know that there was no way of escaping how heavy it was.